CHARLESTON, Ill. -- During a recent awards ceremony, Eastern Illinois standout swimmer Joe Ciliak earned both the Finance Excellence Award and Dean Giffin Award, both of which mark two of the highest honors granted to a senior in EIU's Lumpkin School of Business.

Applicants for these annual prestigious awards are nominated by the Eastern faculty and selected in conjunction by a faculty committee and the dean.

Sporting a 3.92 cumulative grade point average, the Naperville, Ill. native, will soon earn a degree in finance and a minor in accounting.  He's already secured an internship with JPMorgan Chase in Chicago and will begin a career in investment banking with the company upon his graduation this coming May.

In addition, Ciliak was previously one of three Panthers to earn All-Summit League Academic Team kudos.  While as a team, the Panthers have also been honored by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America, with the EIU men earning runner-up honors in all of Division I for all-around squad GPA.

In the pool, the Naperville Central product collected a trio of Summit League honors this past season, as he was a member of three EIU relay squads that finished in the Top 3 at the end-of-season league meet.  Highlight was swimming the anchor leg in the new school-record 200-Medley Relay unit.

While individually, he also improved his previous Panther Top 10 time in the 50-Free, to now own the No. 8 best finish in the EIU record books.

Also over the course of his Panther career, he had previously set school record times in both the individual 200-Breast event in 2012 and swimming the final leg in the 2011 EIU-record 800-Free Relay event.

Quoting Head Coach Elliott McGill
"Joe's academic successes here at EIU have been incredible," McGill said.  "His accolades run a mile long, both academically and athletically.  If you take his internships, academic awards and his athletic success as a school record holder in three events and a top ten swimmer in another two events, I would argue that Joe is one of the best, if not the best, All-Around student-athlete here at EIU.

"We try to teach the swimmers every day, that life is bigger than swimming and the lessons you learn and take from swimming will lead to success in school and life.  Joe's honor, and the many other team and individual honors this team has received over the last few years is a true reflection of our team culture and tradition. 

"Every swimmer here at EIU is going to go on and be successful in whatever they choose to do," he added.  "The challenge we get to face every year is seeing who can top last year's seniors.  Joe's success will be very difficult to beat and I think that really puts it into perspective just excellent a student-athlete he was."

... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID